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It's another day, and you know what that means? It's time for the third of our six reveals of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition pregenerated playtest characters, courtesy the awesome folks over at Paizo. Today it's the turn of Valeros, the human fighter. A little more straightforward than the previous alchemist and cleric sheets, in this one you can see the shield mechanics which have been mentioned a few times over the past months.

Here are Paizo's Mark Seifter's thoughts on Valeros -- "So right away from his sketch, you can see something’s different: Valeros has sheathed his shortsword for now and is using his longsword alongside a shield. Of these iconics, Valeros is the king of reactions, the special action you can take when it is not your turn, usually in response to other actions. He has three different possible reactions, Attack of Opportunity to punish enemies when he’s in their face, Reactive Shield to Raise a Shield for AC when he didn’t have enough actions to do so, and Shield Block to prevent damage when he did have enough actions to Raise his Shield. Combine that with the powerful two-action activity Sudden Charge, which allows him to Stride twice his Speed and then attack, and Valeros is a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield, striking down weaker enemies, harrying stronger enemies, and difficult to fell."

So does he start off with 4 feats? Ancestry, assurance, reactive shield and sudden charge?

Based on Wayne's art - To don his armor Valeros either never takes it of fire while he's drinking in the tavern from the night before or wakes up 45 minutes before the rest Party to start getting strapped in

Nit pick on the sheet - sure wish they would create a damage column in the actions area so the damage would be in a consistent spot. The current layout makes you have to scan the sometimes multiple lines of text to find the damage info.

Early in the playtest reveil there was a lot of talk about how it seemed very similar to D&D 5e. Looking at the precise definitions and the keywords we've seen in these character sheets is the opposite direction. Looking for players who want things more codified and precise then "rulings not rules" 5e. Which is great - both are valid approaches with lots of adherents. This is good news for everyone - more choice for us all in finding what works for us and for our table.

Early in the playtest reveil there was a lot of talk about how it seemed very similar to D&D 5e. Looking at the precise definitions and the keywords we've seen in these character sheets is the opposite direction. Looking for players who want things more codified and precise then "rulings not rules" 5e. Which is great - both are valid approaches with lots of adherents. This is good news for everyone - more choice for us all in finding what works for us and for our table.

Yeah, I'm always puzzled by folks who tell me "it looks like 5e." I like 5e. Some of my best friends made 5e. P2 is not 5e. It's a very different approach to some of the same issues.

Yeah, up to 5 damage at once...but it can block 4 damage forever. Which is interesting to me. Do I take the damage, or take a dent? Knowing if i take a Dent now, I may have to choose between destroying my shield, or dropping to 0 later.

Good news, you space-faring fans of Starfinder: the STARFINDER ARMORY is here and it is stuffed to the gills with gear! There are new ways to frag, slag, burn, kill, maim, and otherwise cut a swath across the Core Worlds and beyond in this book, so let’s get cracking!

When WotC announced the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron as a PDF release it caused a great disturbance as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and frustration. The joy is because the most requested setting in the player surveys was finally being released for 5th Edition. The frustration is because it's not a physical book, it's not legal for D&D Adventurer's League and it said that Wayfinder's “will serve to collect feedback on adjusted races, dragon marks, new backgrounds and more,” making it seem like a beta release. By contrast, Curse of Strahd Ravenloft was presented as an adventure and source material.

Modern AGE is a tool box RPG with detailed rules for player characters but only a brief setting. There are enough adversaries and an adventure to get a GM started, but rules for customizing a setting are scarce. The rules are most comprehensive for a setting designed for the computer age.